JavaFX ComboBox - Display text but return ID on selection

Question

I have a Database table with airports, each airport has a name and an ID.

In JavaFX I have a form, with a ComboBox, the combobox needs to display all the ai

Answer 1

You can create e.g. an AirPort class with ID and name members and a ComboBox that displays these objects: ComboBox.

AirPort class:

public class AirPort {
    private int ID;
    private String name;

    public AirPort(int id, String name) {
        this.ID = id;
        this.name = name;
    }

    public int getID() { return ID; }
    public String getName() { return name; }
}

Get the items from the DB and create the ComboBox:

// Fill the list from the DataBase
ObservableList airports = FXCollections.observableArrayList();
airports.addAll(new AirPort(0, "Heathrow"), 
    new AirPort(1, "Frankfurt"),
    new AirPort(2, "NewYork"));

ComboBox combo = new ComboBox<>();
combo.setItems(airports);

Finally to display the name of the objects you can use for example a StringConverter:

combo.setConverter(new StringConverter() {

    @Override
    public String toString(AirPort object) {
        return object.getName();
    }

    @Override
    public AirPort fromString(String string) {
        return combo.getItems().stream().filter(ap -> 
            ap.getName().equals(string)).findFirst().orElse(null);
    }
});

And then when the value is changing you get back AirPort objects which contains the needed ID:

combo.valueProperty().addListener((obs, oldval, newval) -> {
    if(newval != null)
        System.out.println("Selected airport: " + newval.getName() 
            + ". ID: " + newval.getID());
});